IBM's original monochrome display adapter also uses an 8-bit attribute value per character. The blink bit still makes text blink. The least-significant foreground bit (CGA's blue bit) makes text underlined.
Most VGA adapters (unclear if this is from IBM or later add-ons) will let you configure the screen to support MDA-style underlining. If you do this without switching to a full MDA-style display (which IBM's cards never supported, but lots of third-party cards do), then blue text ends up underlined. Not terribly useful, but that's what happens.
Additionally, it is possible to tweak a register in the video card (definitely for VGA. I think also for EGA and CGA) to disable blinking, which lets you use all 16 colors for background.
Finally, it should be noted that orange and brown are really the same color. It's just a matter of brightness and viewing context as to how you perceive it. This video demonstrates the idea better than any text could: https://youtu.be/wh4aWZRtTwU
You might be interested to read a series of articles I wrote on my personal blog about setting up a Raspberry Pi to act as a server for basic network services (DHCP and DNS):
Part 1 (Intro): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/08/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network.html
Part 2 (DHCP): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/08/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network_11.html
Part 3 (static IP via DHCP): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/08/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network_14.html
Part 4 (DNS): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/09/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network.html
Authored Comments
Great article. Some interesting additional bits.
IBM's original monochrome display adapter also uses an 8-bit attribute value per character. The blink bit still makes text blink. The least-significant foreground bit (CGA's blue bit) makes text underlined.
Most VGA adapters (unclear if this is from IBM or later add-ons) will let you configure the screen to support MDA-style underlining. If you do this without switching to a full MDA-style display (which IBM's cards never supported, but lots of third-party cards do), then blue text ends up underlined. Not terribly useful, but that's what happens.
Additionally, it is possible to tweak a register in the video card (definitely for VGA. I think also for EGA and CGA) to disable blinking, which lets you use all 16 colors for background.
Finally, it should be noted that orange and brown are really the same color. It's just a matter of brightness and viewing context as to how you perceive it. This video demonstrates the idea better than any text could: https://youtu.be/wh4aWZRtTwU
You might be interested to read a series of articles I wrote on my personal blog about setting up a Raspberry Pi to act as a server for basic network services (DHCP and DNS):
Part 1 (Intro): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/08/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network.html
Part 2 (DHCP): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/08/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network_11.html
Part 3 (static IP via DHCP): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/08/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network_14.html
Part 4 (DNS): https://shaminospage.blogspot.com/2020/09/using-raspberry-pi-for-basic-network.html